14 FLRA No. 28
U.S. ARMY MEDICAL DEPARTMENT
ACTIVITY, REDSTONE ARSENAL,
ALABAMA
Activity
and
AMERICAN FEDERATION OF GOVERNMENT
EMPLOYEES, LOCAL 1858, AFL-CIO
Labor Organization/Petitioner
Case No. 4-RO-20012
DECISION AND ORDER
Upon a petition duly filed with the Authority under section
7111(b)(1) of the Federal Service Labor-Management Relations Statute
(the Statute), a hearing was held before a hearing officer of the
Authority. The Authority has reviewed the rulings of the hearing
officer made at the hearing and finds that they are free from
prejudicial error. The rulings are hereby affirmed.
Upon the entire record in this case, including the parties'
contentions, the Authority finds: The Activity, the U.S. Army Medical
Department Activity, Redstone Arsenal, Alabama, employs about 190
civilian employees, largely in connection with its operation of the Fox
Army Community Hospital. The Hospital, which is relatively small and
essentially provides the services of an "acute minor injury" clinic,
supplies inpatient and outpatient care to active and retired military
personnel and their dependents and certain other persons authorized for
care by the Department of the Army. Most of the Activity's civilian
employees, its nonprofessionals and nonsupervisory nurses, are currently
represented in units of exclusive recognition by the Petitioner.
Twenty-three of the Activity's professional employees are not
represented. Eleven of these employees are physicians. The remaining
professionals include three pharmacists, one optometrist, a social
worker, two industrial hygienists, four medical technologists, and an
auditor. The Petitioner seeks to represent a unit which would only
include the 11 physicians. The Activity opposes the petition on the
basis that, in its view, such a unit would not conform to the criteria
of section 7112(a)(1) of the Statute. /1/ It contends that the
physicians should be included in a unit with the other professionals.
/2/
The Authority concludes that a physicians-only unit would not be
appropriate in the instant case. A relatively small number of
physicians are involved, employed in various specialties. By the nature
of their duties, which involve specialized work at a relatively small
medical facility, they have as much contact with the other medical care
professionals as they have with each other. Like the other
professionals, they are GS employees. As such, they are generally
subject to the same personnel regulations and statutes affecting their
personnel policies, practices and working conditions as are the other
professionals. With the other professionals, they work regular hours
during regularly scheduled workweeks.
The determination and administration of the physicians' working
conditions and matters affecting their working conditions which are
within the Activity's control are under the direction of management
personnel who are not physicians. The same management personnel and the
same management structure determine and administer the working
conditions and matters affecting the working conditions of the other
professionals. Complaints and grievances of the physicians regarding
their working conditions are subject to administration and decision by
management personnel who handle complaints and grievances of the other
professionals. Although the physicians enjoy a great deal of
independence and take initiative in the performance of their functions,
by the nature of the Activity's facility and the small number of
professionals involved, all of the professionals enjoy such
independence. In practical effect, while all of the professionals are
not equally involved with the physicians in the delivery of medical
services, the professionals as a whole are engaged in a cooperative
effort in furthering the Activty's mission of providing quality medical
service and thus share a clear and identifiable community of interest.
Finally, while the Petitioner has argued that the physicians must be
considered as functionally distinct from the other professionals and it
has shown that certain of the physicians have an interest in a separate
unit, it has not shown that the inclusion of the physicians in a unit
with the other professionals would disadvantage the physicians in
collective bargaining. The Activity has established that its management
structure and the provision of labor relations services by its host
facility, the U.S. Army Missile Command at Redstone Arsenal, are better
adapted to representation of the professionals in a combined unit, and
that the separation of the professionals into two very small units of
exclusive recognition would not promote effective dealings or efficiency
of Activity operations, but would result in unwarranted unit
fragmentation. See Department of Health and Human Services, Public
Health Service, Food and Drug Administration, Bureau of Drugs, 11 FLRA
No. 115(1983); Providence Veterans Administration Medical Center, Davis
Park, Providence, Rhode Island, 11 FLRA No. 44(1983).
Accordingly, the Authority concludes that the unit sought is not
appropriate for exclusive recognition under section 7112(a)(1) of the
Statute and therefore will order that the petition be dismissed.
ORDER
IT IS ORDERED that the petition in Case No. 4-RO-20012 be, and it
hereby is, dismissed.
Issued, Washington, D.C., March 26, 1984
Barbara J. Mahone, Chairman
Ronald W. Haughton, Member
Henry B. Frazier III, Member
FEDERAL LABOR RELATIONS AUTHORITY
--------------- FOOTNOTES$ ---------------
/1/ Section 7112(a)(1) provides:
Sec. 7112. Determination of appropriate units for labor organization
representation
(a)(1) The Authority shall determine the appropriateness of any
unit. The Authority shall determine in each case whether, in
order to ensure employees the fullest freedom in exercising the
rights guaranteed under this chapter, the appropriate unit should
be established on an agency, plant, installation, functional, or
other basis and shall determine any unit to be an appropriate unit
only if the determination will ensure a clear and identifiable
community of interest among the employees in the unit and will
promote effective dealings with, and efficiency of the operations
of, the agency involved.
/2/ The Petitioner stated at the hearing that it was willing to
proceed to an election only in the unit described in its petition.